


Out of the Shadows

by dreamerfound



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 05:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11822538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamerfound/pseuds/dreamerfound
Summary: At the end of episode 1x08 Grant Ward takes Skye up on her offer to talk and ends up confessing everything about who he is and who he really works for.





	Out of the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> canon up to the end of episode 1x08 (The Well)

Grant Ward was on his third drink. He knew it was a bad idea to get drunk, especially right now, but he needed to drown out the memories in whatever way he could. Garrett hadn’t trained him for this sort of thing. Then again, John Garrett hadn’t really trained him in the usual way. He had forged him into a weapon. A weapon for his own use and agenda. Ward felt trapped. Once he had thought that John had set him free, but it had been a lie. He should have listened to the man when he told him not to trust anyone. He really shouldn’t have trusted him.

He understood why John hated S.H.I.E.L.D. and wanted to do everything he could to hurt the organization. He really did. What they had done to him was wrong. But Ward had experienced something different with Coulson’s team. They had come to get him and Fitz when there had been no extraction team in place. He had thought that was it for him, that he would be left behind, like John had been. He had even accepted it for himself. He had wanted to protect Fitz though. For real, not just for show. The man had grown on him. The whole team had. And they were a team. A real team, the kind that had your back no matter what. Right? 

Maybe not no matter what. If they knew the truth about him, what would they do? Coulson acted like he was all about second chances, but if he knew the truth about Ward, would he give him another chance? Grant laughed at the unlikeliness of that scenario. It was crazy to think that it could be possible. 

Skye sat down beside him. He wondered if she would she forgive him? If she knew? Would she accept the real him? She was offering him a shoulder. He couldn’t take her up on it. He knew his mission. He took another sip of his drink. Fuck the mission.

“Skye, could we go somewhere and talk?”

“Of course.” she said. She takes his hand and they head back to her room. They had a rare overnight at a hotel there in Dublin. It would give them more privacy than they would otherwise be able to find. 

“Make yourself comfortable” she said. There’s only the bed and a desk chair in the corner. He chose the bed and she sat next to him. “Well, here’s my shoulder” He thinks she looks like she wants him to kiss her, so he does. He can’t help it. He doesn’t want to help it. He still felt angry. Leftover rage from the berserker staff. How long was he going to feel this way? He needed to feel something else. He pulled away and stood up.

“Did I do something wrong?’ Grant closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Skye, I need your help.” he said. He opened his eyes and felt a strange sense of relief.

“What do you need me to do?” She was always so accepting. So caring. More caring than he deserved.

“Skye, I’m a spy.” 

“No, duh. Super spy. It’s kind of your thing.” She didn’t understand. 

“No Skye. I’m a double agent. But I don’t want to be anymore.” He shook his head. This wasn’t working. He punched the wall. She jumped. He put his hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you” It seemed important for him to say that. To clarify. He needed to be clear here. No room for misunderstandings. 

He told her the way that he was recruited. How John Garrett had approached him when he was in juvie. How he left him on his own in the woods for months. He could see the horror in her face. 

“That’s not right, Ward. You know that.” She seemed so sure of it, he almost believed her.  
“It made me the man I am.” he said. It was the truth. Grant Ward was the man he was today because of John Garrett, for better or worse. Mostly worse. 

“We need to tell Coulson” she said. It sounded logical, but it also sounded like the end of this and the beginning of a long stretch in a S.H.I.E.L.D. detention cell. “No” he said. 

“Yes Ward. He’ll know what to do. He can give you a second chance.” Grant laughed. “There’s no bomb in my head Skye. I had choices. I just made the wrong ones.”

“But you’re making the right one now. I know Coulson, he’ll help.” He didn’t know if he really believed her but his other choice was to run. He didn’t want to run. Not without her.

“We could leave.” he said. 

“Leave?” Skye sounded confused. 

“Together. We could run. I’ve got money and stuff stashed all over the world. We can have a fresh start together. Between the two of us we can get lost and no one will be able to find us, not S.H.I.E.L.D., and not...” He didn’t want to say the word. It made it all sound so much worse. 

“Ward, we can’t leave. You asked for my help and I’m telling you, we need to tell Coulson.” 

He wanted to punch another hole in the wall. He wanted to do more than that. He wanted to crush John Garrett’s head under his boot and that thought hurt because Garrett was more than his SO, he was his family. He would have done anything for him. He already had. He didn’t want to now. Not anymore. He rubbed his face hard. He wanted another drink. He wanted to get out of there. He wanted to feel Skye’s lips on his again. That wasn’t going to happen if he ran. Not if she wouldn’t follow him. He sat down on the bed. 

“Call Coulson” he tells her. It felt like giving up. She took his hand in hers. “It’ll be okay.” She said, and then made the call. 

He was standing again when Coulson knocked. Against the wall, in front of the hole he made. 

“What’s going on? Should I call the rest of the team in?” Coulson looked worried.  
“Not yet” Skye said.

He knew that he could kill them both and make a run for it. Somehow it made him feel better to remember this. He was still in control. This didn’t have to be the end. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sir, HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.” He saw Skye’s eyes go wide.  
“Proof?” Coulson asked.

“I was recruited to both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA by Agent John Garrett, I’ve been working for them both ever since.” Coulson took a step back. “I’ve got to say, that was not what I was expected. I thought the two of you were going to tell me that you were sleeping together.” Skye coughed and Ward stood still. 

“How far up the chain does it go?” Coulson asks.  
“All the way to the top Sir.”  
“Is Centipede part of it?”  
“Yes Sir.”  
“Son of a bitch.”  
“Agent Grant Ward, I need to take you into custody” Coulson looked unhappy about the whole situation.  
“I understand Sir.”  
“What the hell?” Skye didn’t understand.  
“He’s asking for your help, and you want to arrest him?”  
“It’s protocol” both men said at the same time.  
“Seriously?” Skye threw her hands up in the air.  
“I can’t risk him running. Right now he’s has important information that could be vital for the safety of well...everyone.” Coulson got his phone out and called Melinda. He didn’t tell her what was going on just that she was needed, and that it was urgent. She was at the door in less than five minutes.  
“Sir?” she asked.  
Ward listened while Coulson explained to May that he was a traitor. Not that he used that word. The gist was the same. He stood motionless, while his life fell apart around him. 

______________________________

Skye felt numb. Reality had been turned upside down. How could Grant Ward be a traitor? How could he be a member of HYDRA? Everyone knew that HYDRA was founded by nazis. Was her SO an actual nazi? She shook her head. This couldn’t be happening. What did this mean for her? 

She could hear May and Coulson fighting in the next room. It was loud. They were loud. She pushed away from the wall where she had been sulking and went to check on them.

“Sir, we need report this to HQ.” May looked serious, more than that she looked angry. Angrier than usual. 

“Under normal circumstances, that would be the correct call. But if what he says is true and HYDRA has wound it’s tentacles through S.H.I.E.L.D. all the way to the top, we can’t afford to do that. If we can avoid tipping them off, we give ourselves a greater advantage.” Coulson sounded calmer than he looked.

“If he’s telling the truth.” May didn’t look like she thought Ward was telling the truth. 

“Why would he lie?” Skye said. She stepped into the room, arms crossed.

“Because it’s what he does. He’s a double agent Skye, you can’t trust him, none of us can.” May acted as if this whole thing was way more personal than it should have been.

“But why would he confess to being a double agent and then lie about everything else?” Skye wasn’t sure why he confessed at all.

“Maybe he was close to getting caught. Maybe it’s all part of his mission. We can’t know for sure.” Coulson said.

“We can’t just keep him locked up on the bus indefinitely.” Skye was worried about Ward. It had been three days since he confessed. He’d been locked up ever since. 

“We agree on that point.” May crossed her arms and glared at Coulson. Skye didn’t think May wanted to set Ward free, she suspected she would prefer to drop him down a deep, dark hole.

Skye decided to focus her argument on Coulson. “Sir, he needs our help. That’s what we do, right? We help people.” 

Coulson sighed. “It isn’t that simple, Skye.” 

“I know, but he could have just left. He could have took off and never told us” “Or he could have slit our throats while we slept.” May added.

“Exactly” Skye said. Coulson shook his head. “We need to talk to someone we can trust.”

“Fury.” May said.  
“He hasn’t been taking my calls.” Coulson didn’t look happy about it.  
“He’ll take mine.” May said. Coulson looked dubious. This time it was May who sighed and looked uncomfortable.  
“I have a direct line to Fury.”  
“Excuse me?” Coulson sounded less than happy.  
“Fury set me up with an encrypted line.”  
“Where?” Coulson asked. All his attention was on May.  
“Here, on the plane.”  
“My plane? You have a direct line to Nick Fury on my plane?”  
“I can explain Sir.”  
“By all means, please do.” Coulson crossed his arms.  
“He wanted me to look after you, wanted me to be able to contact him in case something went wrong.”  
“with me? If something went wrong with me, you mean, right?”  
“Yes sir.” 

Skye hated when they fought. “Um...maybe we can call Fury...now?” She hated to interrupt them, but they needed to get back to the subject of the Ward situation, not veer off into some new crisis. One crisis at a time was plenty. She didn’t want to see Ward end up in some sort of S.H.I.E.L.D. detention center, where he’d be vulnerable to Hydra retaliation. Or worse.

“Skye’s right. Not that this isn’t interesting, but we don’t have time to get into this. We will, don’t worry. For now, make contact; tell Fury he needs to hear what we have to say in person. I don’t care how secure you think your line is, this needs to be kept under wraps.”  
_________________________

Ward wasn’t surprised that they were keeping him locked up. He was lucky that they hadn’t turned him in yet. He he should have run. He could have taken Skye with him. There had to have been a way that he could have convinced her to run. He paced the small space. They had given him his books. He couldn’t bring himself to read them though. They were Garrett’s books. He gave Ward a stack to read for when he had downtime on the bus. He doubted Garret envisioned Ward having so much time off. 

He was so angry at Garrett, yet at the same time it turned his gut knowing that he had betrayed him. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that John had molded him into this person he had become. He also knew that it was wrong. That he wasn’t a good person, and maybe...maybe it wasn’t too late to change. 

That stupid berserker staff had shown him all his sins. Those he had done, and those done to him. The Asgardian had said that it shined the light in your dark places, or something like that. He wasn’t wrong. It hadn’t gone away either. Sure some of the rage had receded, but he still kept seeing all the things that he had done, all the things John had made him do.

He knew the blame wasn’t all on the other man. Ward had been bad before John had gotten to him, it was why John had targeted him. He had seen his darkness, and his weakness. What would have happened if someone else had brought him into S.H.I.E.L.D.? Someone like Agent Coulson. Would things have been different? Could he have been a better man? Ward wasn’t sure, but it might have been nice to have been given the chance. Would he have a chance now, or was it too late for him?

He stopped his pacing. Someone was at the door. Skye let herself in and gave him a half smile. She looked worried. His heart sank.

“What are you doing here?” He sat down on the cot, so she could sit down next to him. He was grateful when she did. Skye took his hand. “Why are you helping me?” he asked. Her eyes were red and puffy. She had been crying. “Because you asked, dummy” He knew she was trying to keep it light. Give him hope. He appreciated the sentiment, but it didn’t help. Not really.  
“You don’t have to stay with me.” he said.  
“I thought you might want a little company while you waited. If you want me to leave...”  
“No, stay.” He squeezed her hand. She was right. He didn’t want to be alone. He had been alone too long. “Thank you” he said quietly. He still couldn’t quite believe she was here with him, after everything she had learned.  
She smiled. “I believe you’re worth saving” His chest, which had been feeling tight ever since he laid out his confession for the team, suddenly felt relaxed. He felt relieved. He wasn’t sure that he was worth saving, but to hear her say those words- it meant more than Skye could imagine. He smiled at her and leaned back. It was going to be okay. He held her hand and waited to hear what fate had in store for him.

**Author's Note:**

> written for hc_bingo round #8  
> prompt: asking for help


End file.
